And the Day Dawned Red
by obscurestyle
Summary: [Wist.] Prequel to 3.0 Eating Pattern: This isn't a war.


**And the Day Dawned Red**

Klaagia is dying, like it has been for centuries. But now it's dying amidst the choking heat of post-war debris. Wist can see the scattered remains of planets in the sky, even past the sun. Klaagia's a garbage planet; it's always been a garbage planet, and even though she's spent her life trying to escape from the rot, she feels safe here now, with the rubbish covering the floor and the people scavenging in the waste, because she's survived, because they've outlived the civilised planets that are now just rocks floating through the sky.

Wist takes a breath, and savours the tainted air. _Alive_.

--

Wist doesn't expect to see so many smiles surrounding her, twisting the faces of people who've long ago forgotten how to smile. But there they are, stopping her heart and bringing tears to her eyes. There aren't many people crowding into the main chamber, and those that are seem slightly off-balance with the thought of it, as though standing tall in their tattered clothing will rob them of victory. But they're alive, Wist thinks, latching on to it with her teeth. And if their bodies still wear down under fear now, it won't continue for much longer.

Of the few hundred workers that Klaagia housed, there are only about a hundred left. Of the hundred still alive, there are only about thirty openly celebrating. And in their faces, Wist can see a hysterical brightness and a stunted hope, as if the victory will only last as long as they're crowded in _here_,and alive _now_.

"Wist!" someone cries. Wist fixes a smile to her face and shoulders through the crowd to where Bog stands, his glass raised in greeting. "Darling, have you seen the sky? The night is gone. We're free!" He drains his glass, sickly pink liquid sloshing over the rim and grins at her, a slightly drunk, entirely blissful grin. Bog is glowing, waving his arm as if he can spread the cheer outwards and around and take away the fear single-handedly, and Wist is not entirely sure it isn't working. Bog taps his glass against the table, quiet but pervasive, like a never-ending knocking. _Tap tap tap_. The volume dies down.

"We are free," he says. "The Trade Wars are over. Drink up." Bog bequeaths a knowing little smile. "It's the time of the plentiful"

There is a cheering, but it sounds more like a ragged exhalation, a dying breath clotted with hope. The cheer is taken up from the back: "More booze!" It's freedom, and in amongst the crowd a boy shouts that he'll make a run for more drink.

He runs out of the room and into the centre of the building, aloft with the survivors' jubilation. Wist is caught up in it all. She joins the laughter and watches the real, true smiles break free, watches the wrinkles slough off young faces, and lets her own tears fall. Everything is more than just a dream.

But the boy never returns.

--

It is only after five more people vanish that the whispers start. _"It's not over, the war's still on", "They're still alive, they're killing/ us /now", "It's Marvan technology", "We're infected", "We're going to die, we'll die, we'll die!"_

Wist has the old feeling back; the constant taste of metal at the back of her throat, her limbs trying to seize up and render her useless. She wonders if maybe the best option is to throw herself off the edge of the building, hide down in the dirt, another piece of waste in a paranoid wasteland. To burrow into Klaagia, a natural tic. A part of the planet. Wist thinks it would be wonderful, this safety, the thought of the cloying warmth on all sides. She thinks about logistics and comfort and never having to keep a look-out because you'd be surrounded on all sides by the calm, brown earth. She wonders if she'd be missed. She wonders if they'd think her trapped.

The wind screeches past her ear, and the sound is echoed by a human voice. There's worry in every passage. Wist thinks, I could run, I could run now, somewhere where there's only time and me and the earth. Wist thinks, There is fear, there's so much fear, and it's only days since the war's ended.

Wist thinks, They're my people. And, I can't leave.

She turns back to the labyrinthine tunnels and the sharp glinting turns. The voice is still calling out, "Marvans, Marvans, Marvans _we're infected_!", and she steps over each word as if it's nothing out of the ordinary. "We'll die, we'll die!"

Like it's a melody.

--

"They're right, you know," says Bog, grinning like a skull. "It's Marvan technology. Chemical warfare on our war-torn lawn."

"How do you know?" Wist asks.

"I know, Wist, I know. The Marvans were ruthless, vicious people. They engineered things that went unstopped, because there wasn't enough time to stop them. They'd make something else when you weren't looking." Bog sighs. "I don't know what it is, but it is Marvan. We need to find the missing people."

Bog is pacing his Commander-like pacing. His glow is gone, collapsed under a stone of knowledge, and a pulsing, like something trying to escape, has started up in his jaw. Wist understands that it's back to a battlefield for them all, and they're going to have to deal with the panic. She clutches at her tunic.

"Is that even possible, sir?"

"I don't know, I don't -- yes, it is possible." Bog pauses. "Yes. We can find them. Wist, find a few people who've still got their minds intact. I want you to start searching the passages."

"More passages than people, sir," she whispers.

Bog faces her, eyes narrowed. "I don't care if you have to use each other as battering rams, get out and search the rooms."

"Yes, Commander Bog." Wist salutes and turns to leave, sticking to convention around the bile in her throat. Bog holds up a hand.

"Wist, be careful. Whatever's here is here to kill, and the Marvans were geniuses at death if nothing else."

--

If being around every scared, bloodless face is stifling Wist, then being alone in the corridors is suffocating her.

She isn't jumping at every sound; she's been trained in stealth, after all. And anyway, the corridors themselves are silent, as if they're hiding away every little sound in favour of listening. Wist doesn't feel comforted by the quiet, doesn't feel better at watching her feet push around the rubbish covering the ground, because as long as every corridor remains still and empty, there's the possibility of finding something, the anxiety of standing on a brink, about to push everyone off.

Something sighs by her shoulder, and she freezes.

Trying to stay as quiet as possible, Wist turns to the wall, where she is confronted by a human-sized duct, covered in moss and what looks like spider webs. She steps to the side and listens, but there's nothing to hear over her own breath, and only the stench of fear-sweat and mould.

"Hello?" she tries, and there is only the echo of her voice, tentative and scared, beating through the duct and into whatever room lies beyond. The moss trembles. "Hello?" she says again, and back comes the whispered plea, _hello hello hello_.

Then, "Oh please!" comes a voice from within. "Oh, help, please!"

Wist hisses in a breath and steps back. There's nothing recognisably human in that voice, whoever it belongs to. It shifts with each syllable, sounds high and _learned_, as if whatever's there is reading aloud from a script. Before Wist can decide what to do, it lets out a pathetic whimper that brushes the hair on the back of her neck, and there, Wist is decided. She pulls the knife from her belt and grips it, only slightly awkward. "Who's in there? What's happened?" She steps back up to the duct and climbs in a little way, making sure to keep the lower half of her body forward, the knife pointing out at the dark. There isn't a response this time, but then, there doesn't have to be. Wist is lowering herself into the room, knife still raised high and not even making a slash of moonlight in the darkness.

She crouches, belly almost grazing the floor, and sidles away from the duct, her eyes lowered and arms close, and mouth slightly open so that she can't even hear herself breathing. It's everything she thinks claustrophobia would be; the echoing silence, the loss of control, the blackness almost touching her. Wist moves further into the room.

And is pulled off her feet.

Something has her by the ankle; a sort of leafy, wet piece of steel. She slashes at it blindly and hears a howl of pain echoing and echoing around. Her ankle is gripped tight enough to make her gasp. Wist scrabbles at the ground, her knife digging in and glancing off each time. Her gasping, sobbing breath is the only sound she can hear over the slithering of whatever has her. She tries to remember everything she's learnt in the past war. She slashes out wildly with her knife, almost wrenching her knee in trying to free her leg. Whatever has her is stronger than metal. It's pulling her apart. She goes slack in its grip and readies herself for one last push against it, hoping to at least be wrenched in a different direction. And then, as she readies herself to move, it stops.

Wist breathes harshly, still kicking out with one foot, still reaching around for something to grab a hold of. She hears the silence of the room pressing against her ears, like a drum pulsing around her heart. It still has her by the ankle -- _of course, of course, it wouldn't let go now_ -- but it's no longer pulling her anywhere, and by craning her neck, she can still see the tiny circle of light that is the duct. She tries to pull herself away and hears the beating of her heart quiet. But then a new sound replaces it, a chittering, whispering sound.

From the duct, Wist sees a group of little green lights appear, bobbing and undulating over the ground towards her. They surround her, and Wist goes rigid as they move over her body. The lights are burning into her eyes. She can feel them pricking at her skin like tiny needles touching over every part of her body, moving from head to feet and then continuing on through the room until they seem to burn themselves out, but first illuminating the choking vine that still has Wist by the ankle.

Then, as the lights go, the vine releases Wist's ankle and slithers away.

She gets shakily to her feet, and is about to run when she sees what looks like a picture of herself still lying on the ground. Wist moves to touch it, but as she does, the picture wavers and thickens, and then melts into the floor. Wist doesn't waste anymore time; she runs.

--

There must have been one time -- long ago and too, too far back in memory to remember -- when Klaagia was living. Wist is sure of it. After all, why else would she feel the planet seeping in through her pores, the atmosphere clouding into her throat, the history pushing her straight through the earth? She taps her foot against the ground and thinks that maybe, somewhere deep and buried, the planet is breathing out around her. That maybe, if she pushes down hard enough, she can crush it at its pulse point.

Wist breathes in, slow, then out _two_, and keeps herself at a watching, waiting rigidity. Two more people have vanished. It was probably last night that they were taken, or maybe a few days earlier; no one's keeping in touch anymore, and groups of people have cloistered themselves away, down the dank corridors and into places Wist doesn't even want to think of. But news still travels, and the shattered group of authority under Bog is always at the end of the trail.

"We've found something," says a voice at Wist's ear, only slightly wavering.

Wist turns quickly, then feels air rush back into her lungs at the man standing before her. He's one of Bog's, like Wist, his thin arms gangling at his sides and dirt smearing a path from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. Faceless, she thinks, but nods. "What? The missing people?"

The man smirks a little. "Something like that. Come on, they're up with Bog."

Wist follows him through the corridors, watching the dips and creases of each wall and trying not to think too much about anything. She has to cough a little at the man's walk, fluid and silent as it's trying to be, but nothing stops the gnawing at the pit of her stomach as she thinks about what will be awaiting them.

The entrance to Bog's quarters, like everywhere else, is dim and shadowed, but Wist doesn't even bother to flinch as she walks through the door. There are voices on the inside, rising and falling along with an ear-wrenching shrieking, like a baby's voice on the inhale of a scream.

"What's going on?" Wist asks, trying to peer around the group of men and women huddled inside the room. Bog turns to see her.

"Ah, Wist, good, we're all here. Thank you, Kusak." He nods at the dirt-covered man with Wist, and then beckons her forwards. "I think you might like to see this, it's quite a find."

Bog waves his arm in elaborate circles at the floor in front of him, where Wist can see a twitching, shuddering man, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. And, Oh, that's where the shrieking's coming from, she thinks as he shakes his head violently, twisting away from her. Out the back of his head, Wist can see something stretching out, swinging wildly with the man's movements, like a green, screaming plant forcing its way through the man's neck. She swallows convulsively.

"See?" Bog says proudly. "_Marvans_."

The plant swings upwards, and she can see a rubbery maw opening with every new scream. Wist can't stop staring at it, the scientific horror and the man's wide, crazed eyes blending together until she feels hot and dizzy and full. His head has stopped shaking for the most part, but his eyes are still staring up at Bog. Wist feels a thrill of fear at the blank elation she can see in them. She doesn't think he's blinked once.

"What do Marvans have to do with this?" someone says. Wist turns, and realises she's surrounded by a hostile, frightened crowd.

"Marvans have to do with _everything_," says Bog, "That's the point!" Bog puts his hand on the man's head, carefully, just over his forehead, then slides his hand down to under the chin. He grips the man there, then turns him so he's facing the rest of the room. "We were having a very nice conversation before, about -- what was it again, Torak?" he asks the man.

Torak's nostrils flare. "Sweet shapes," he murmurs.

"Ah, yes, that's it," says Bog. He drops Torak's head, turning away and absent-mindedly wiping his hand on the leg of his trousers. "Torak here is one of the people who went missing. He's not really recognisable under that dirt, but he is human. Or, partly. Anyway --" Bog takes a breath, and it's suddenly as if he doesn't want to be here anymore, wasn't expecting to go through anything like this and wholly unhappy with the situation. Wist can see the way his lips turn down at the corner, under the veil of his command, can see the desperation and loss in the cant of his stance. Bog is a man just barely in control. "I've been asking him what happened for about an hour now and I've got a few answers. People didn't go missing, really, they were taken. By -- Torak keeps calling it a queen. And then they were infected. By this." He nods at Torak's still-twitching head. "It's called a satellite worm. They were part of the Marvans' weapons in the early part of the Trade Wars, which I suppose means that no one really won after all. The queen probably burrowed into Klaagia and waited."

One man standing next to Wist takes a shuddering breath. "This … _worm_ is Marvan technology? I don't remember anything like it. And what do you mean, a queen? Bog, we have to be rational about this."

"Rational, yes." Bog tilts his head, apparently contemplating the man. Then his gaze shifts back to Torak. "We found the worms very early on in the war, about a year after it had started. You wouldn't have heard of them because they weren't common knowledge. We thought we had it all under control, you see. The worms weren't much of a threat, they just shrieked a lot. We thought we wiped them out. Obviously not. As to this queen, I don't know." He sighs. "Torak doesn't seem to know all that much either, but the one thing I'm sure of is that she's strong enough to kill us all."

There is a shifting of uncomfortable feet. Wist can see people reaching for the weapons clustered at their belts, but one woman keeps her head up, her eyes flicking from Bog to Torak. Her lips are twisted more in scorn than in fear of the shuddering man. "Can we be sure of that?" she asks. Torak's head whips around to her. "This man looks scared more than --"

"Sweet shapes," grins Torak. He beats his arms on the floor and rises into a crouch, his eyes focused on the woman. The satellite worm has twisted around to her, too, its shrieking matching with Torak's cries. "Sweet shapes, sweet shapes!" he says again, and launches himself at her.

The woman steps back just as Bog catches hold of Torak, pulling him away. His hand grasps at the worm, keeping it still, and Torak shudders and gasps at the touch. "Please, please!" he says, voice suddenly high and frantic. "Stop! If you pull it out, I'll die." He goes limp in Bog's arms, the worm shrieking enough to drown out the shouts of everyone else, but Wist doesn't need to hear Bog's next words to know what he says. She can see Bog's arm tighten around Torak's chest, can see Bog's sharp, cold eyes, and feels her throat close as Bog's lips form the words, "I don't care."

He pulls the worm out.

Wist had expected blood or bone or _something,_ but the worm comes free after one sharp tug from Bog, dark green skin covered in a glistening sheen. Torak collapses and spasms once, before his head thunks onto the floor and he lies there, eyes gleaming lifelessly at the ceiling. There are a few choked-off cries and a disgusted exclamation from the woman Torak had just tried to attack, but they do nothing more than watch as Bog holds up the worm and twists it savagely, once, twice, until its body is ripped into two and its shrieking is finally stilled.

And then the smell hits them, and Wist gags. She can smell the copper burn of human blood as well as the garbage stench of the worm. Bog smiles a triumphant smile and raises a hand dripping in green.

"The Trade Wars haven't ended," he says. "Klaagia is still at war."

--

But it's not as simple as that.

Torak's body is cleared away almost as soon as it hits the ground. Wist can still see the green and red decorating the floor. As far as they know, this is the only place where blood has been spilt; where, Bog likes to say, a great victory has taken place. But nothing's changed _really_. They're at war only when they remember Torak's screams, and even then, the paranoia that's infested every room is nothing new, is nothing more than stale sweat and sleepless nights, and memories that somewhere, something might be crawling closer.

But there's always something that makes it real.

"Here," says Bog, holding out his hand. "I want you to have this."

Wist looks down and sees that he is holding out the remains of a satellite worm. She recoils, but Bog looks at her solemnly. "I need you to study it. I want to find out everything about these worms and I want to find out now. And you're the only one with any possibility of doing it."

Wist sighs. "All right. Just -- put it on the table, then."

Bog throws the worm onto the table, green splattering out behind it, and sits as Wist rummages through the drawers for a scalpel. She prods at the head carefully, stares down its throat, and then starts splitting it through the middle. She tries not to wince at the rotting death smell or at the way the table glows a brighter green. Wist is used to death -- she supposes they all are now -- but sitting at this table, peeling back skin while Bog looks on with red-white eyes, this is something beyond death.

"More people have vanished," says Bog.

Wist hunches her shoulders. "Has anyone like Torak been --"

"No, nothing like Torak. That's his worm." Wist pauses her cutting and stares at Bog. "I don't know if there's anyone else even in here anymore, you know? Or I think maybe everyone's just left or died, or maybe they were all like this to begin with. Do you think we're still human? You're covered in blood. In green. You don't look human anymore, like that. I think it's probably better. I think," he says carefully, "I think we're all going to die, and I think there's nothing I can do or would want to do to change it. I'm starting to forget what it's like to be happy. You don't look happy, Wist, darling. Torak didn't look happy, but now he's smiling without his brains. Maybe this is how it should go. Maybe we'll be happier without our brains, too."

"Stop!" says Wist. "Stop --"

"It's this planet, it's this damn empty rock p-planet." Bog presses his fingers to his nose and sighs, and stays like that for a few minutes while Wist sits, hands covered in blood and unable to do a thing.

"I don't think we should stop," she says finally. "We know the queen's somewhere and we know what she is, so we'll know how to kill her when we have to. We _have_ to." Bog blinks at her, and Wist stares calmly back.

"I have to go," Bog says. He leaves. Wist turns back to the worm, feeling cold and rot, and continues to cut.

--

The sound of building is almost enough to drown out her thoughts, and for that, she's grateful. Bog's greatest achievement, the half-finished probe to be sent out for help, lies in the middle of the main chamber. It's a skeleton device. She can almost see the ribs of it twining together. Wist shifts a little and rubs at the back of her neck. There are men helping Bog to build it, men who group together around the chamber and talk softly, eyes darting towards the nailed-up doorways and back again. Every so often, one or two women ghost by.

There are no children at all.

"Pitiful, isn't it?" says a voice at her shoulder. Wist turns to see Kusak grinning up at her. He tilts his head to one side. "I thought you were meant to be resting."

"I did," she says. She had been given a few hours' leave, and had spent the time closeted in her room, recording one last, futile message for help. Bog's own attempt, she thinks, is just a more advanced copy.

Kusak murmurs something in reply and leans against the wall, staring across the chamber. "You know, no one would fault you for taking a break once in a while."

"I know."

"And it's not like you'll be much help right now."

"That's true."

"And it's not like we're --"

"Kusak!" Wist hisses. "Just -- leave it, already. I'm fine up here."

He frowns back at her. "Oh, absolutely," he drawls. "In fact, you can hardly see the scratches." Wist's hand flies to her neck. She meets Kusak's smirk with a scowl, and folds her arms instead. He sighs. "Look, all I'm saying is that it's probably better to be out of sight."

"For now?" she asks.

"For the moment."

Wist nods. "Sure, I could do that. I could hide in my room and pretend to sleep, and spend the time wondering if this plan will ever actually work, wondering if the probe will actually get off the ground, not to mention find anyone for help. I could disappear in the dark and hope I won't be found there." She stretches and flashes a grin at Kusak. "But I'm not going to. I much prefer being in the open."

"All right," he says angrily. "All right. But then, I'm not the one they'll go after."

He walks to the centre of the room, and Wist sags against the wall. The chamber is still as crowded as ever, people swarming through the room like ants, but from her vantage point she can still see the bones of the probe. Bog is crouching over it, gesticulating madly. Wist lets her weight sink to the floor and rests her head on her knees. Kusak's words have awoken the pain in her muscles. She can feel every ache, now, the slow burning ring around her throat almost as if she's being strangled anew. She shudders. The days are getting dimmer, the people vanishing now in whole groups, the women and children the first to be carried off in their jaws. Wist grins, involuntarily. Jaws. Yes, that was the way to put it. The men were dragged off and enslaved, the women cut up and devoured.

Sometimes, they didn't bother to kill them first.

Wist drifts her thumb across her throat, and then moves it down across her forearm. She pushes at the bite mark there, and can see red seeping through the ragged bandaging. He'd been stronger than she'd thought, to push her against the wall and twist her arm to his mouth. Afterwards, she'd thought the blood on his mouth had been there before he attacked her. She hadn't even felt the pain. She'd been too busy staring over his shoulder, staring at the pile of limbs he'd cut off his own children. Their heads had been in the basket next to him.

Wist takes a shuddering breath and closes her eyes. "Everything dies," she whispers.

There's a crash from the opposite end of the room and a scream, "No, hel--" Wist jerks her head up. Her vision is greeted with panicked chaos. The men who were working on the probe are now over by the one open door. Bog is standing back, shouting something that sounds like, "Time! Time!" He's wielding something that looks like a scythe, his feet braced either side of the probe. Around him, people are scurrying about, picking up anything close by and holding it in shaking hands. Their eyes are fixed on the doorway.

It's when Wist starts to rise that she can really see what's happening. The men around the door are suddenly fewer, Bog surrounded now by no one. Black-clothed figures are pushing through the knot of people who are now at the door. Wist can see some people writhing on the floor, but doesn't stop to think about it; she's seen that happening too often now to pause. She picks up a metal pipe and turns to Bog, just as one figure makes it through the crowd at the door and starts towards him. The woman is clad in black vines, her stride blowing her hair across her face. Wist steps into a run, but only makes it halfway across the distance before the woman reaches Bog. Bog has his weapon up to greet her, but as Wist watches, she stops before she's in his range, and speaks. And then Wist blinks -- she must have, she _must_ have -- because the next moment, the woman has Bog's head gripped in a twisting kiss.

"No!" roars Wist, crossing the distance at last and slamming the pipe into her stomach. She lets go of Bog, but Wist doesn't spare a glance for the man at their feet now, twitching helplessly. Wist stares at the woman, who stares back in return, and she watches as her own smile blooms on the woman's face. It's like looking into a lake, the reflection warped and soulless. The look-alike cocks her head. Her smile is empty as she says, "Do you like me?"

Panic takes over Wist's body, and she plunges the pipe lengthwise into the look-alike's stomach. It passes through the skin as if it's nothing more solid than water. Wist lets go of the pipe and steps back. Without any resistance, the pipe slides through the woman's flesh and exits her back, clanging loudly against the floor. Her face begins to twitch, her torso shuddering and spasming, but Wist's eyes are caught by the hole in her stomach. Worms are gathering in the shredded flesh, and as Wist watches, they writhe out of the woman's body and coil on the ground, arching next to Bog's unconscious form. Her muscles go slack. A glance at the doorway shows her more vine-clad clones pressing into the room, and more worms lying still on the ground. Wist looks back at where the woman has collapsed on the ground. She walks around her and picks up the pipe, holding it gingerly for a few moments, and then gripping it purposefully. There's nothing left to salvage here, anymore. She looks at the woman once more. "I am going to kill you," Wist whispers. She runs.

--

There's only one place to go, now. She's sure of it. Every patrol up this way has vanished almost immediately and the whole area has been blocked off, but Wist knows she's going in the right direction. The fighting far behind her, Wist moves into the food storage room and stares down, at the well. The one room they'd taken for granted. The one room that pushes down into the planet.

As she walks towards the well, she can feel the kiss of air on her brow. There's the whistle of weapons from down the corridors. She takes a breath and, as the foetid smell of the air almost overwhelms her, jumps into the well. And that's when the feeling comes to her, the whispering hum of the queen. Like a drug, like a cheer.

Like a benediction.


End file.
